High School AU - Kitty
by ti-bae-rius
Summary: All the prompts people requested me to write from the @nerd-are-cool AU list on Tumblr that I haven't put into other fics (so that's 4:iv and 10:ii, xi). Follow me on Tumblr for more fic that I don't put up on here and things like that. TW: Some bullying, lots of discussion of loss and the trauma that comes with grief, bit of meltdown description.


"I know this year will be difficult without your sister, but you have to try and make the best of things," the counsellor told Ty gently.

"Make the best of things? How?" he asked, head on his knees that were drawn up to his chest.

"It's a new year," she said, crossing one leg over the other where she sat opposite him in her office. "You were a year ahead before, so that means the last semester you missed won't matter. You'll be with people your own age, and that might be good for you, Ty."

Ty shrugged and got up with a sigh. "I'd better go."

"You're welcome to eat your lunch in here, remember," she added as he shut the door, feet dragging as he braced for the chaos.

Junior year was going to be hell without Livvy. All he had going for him was that he only had to survive two more years until he could leave for college. That would be brand new. Ordinarily, that would be a complete nightmare, something utterly new, but it sounded like a blessing right about now. Right now, all he wanted was to be invisible. He knew everyone was watching him, one separated half of an inseparable pair, a twinless twin. The school counsellor wanted him to go to group therapy for young people who'd suffered a 'profound loss' in the next town over. He'd flat out refused but placated her with a promise he'd at least consider some small group work with his peers, if the opportunity for it arose. Thus far it hadn't, but it was only the first day back. There was still plenty of time for everything to go wrong.

He was almost glad when he saw the sticky note on his locker saying, 'Welcome back, freak'. At least someone wasn't too consumed by pity to lay off bullying him. At least something hadn't changed. He balled it up and threw it in the trash on the way into homeroom. He winced when he saw Paige approach his desk. She was a full-fledged bitch with strawberry lip gloss. She planted a hand on his book and gave him a sad look.

"I am sooo sorry about Livvy," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Ty cringed. "I know we weren't like friends friends, but I feel like we were, you know, _friends_." When Ty blinked, saying nothing, she continued. "I'm really glad you're back in our class. Maybe you could tutor me. You're really smart."

Ty glanced down at his desk and mumbled something unintelligible. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he fought back the urge to shrug her hand away.

"Hang in there, Ty."

He gave a nod he hoped would signal the end of their conversation. She spun and went back to her friends, a gaggle of giggles and gloss.

"When did the freak get hot?" one said, slightly too loud, and they all laughed when this volume faux pas became obvious. She didn't seem embarrassed, even as she loudly declared her mortification.

Ty slid further down in his seat, pulling the pocket edition of Sherlock Holmes he carried for comfort on what promised to be bad days. He'd judged right. Junior year wasn't just going to be hell; it was very nearly unbearable right from the get-go.

The popularity that came with being the twin left behind, the lasting familial embodiment of his universally-loved social butterfly of a sister, apparently didn't stretch as far as company. He was the first to his AP English class and still no one sat down beside him. When his teacher pulled a boy in from the hallway and he slouched uncomfortably at the front of the room, Ty groaned internally. There was one free seat and now they were getting the new student talk; '_This is Kit, he's new, would you like to sit over there in the back corner?_' Blah blah blah. On the bright side, at least Kit wouldn't look at him and see one half of a whole. He'd be a complete person to someone.

Kit gave him the requisite head nod of greeting and Ty offered up a small, tight-lipped smile. Neither of them said anything, and Ty let his gaze wander to the window at his left, imagining he was anywhere else but here. He could be solving crimes or writing research papers or – what was that? He turned back to Kit, who was leaning back on his chair. It was squeaking as he rocked casually back and forth on the back legs. Ty tried to ignore it, going back to his daydreams. He could be writing research papers or travelling to London or –

Again. He always tried to be patient with people's fidgeting – he knew his own tics and stims annoyed the hell out of people – but the sound of squeaking plastic against the floor was making Ty's brain feel like it was quivering in his head, shaking like a scared animal against the inside of his skull. It didn't leave much room for patience. He eventually made eye contact with Kit – fleeting, uncomfortable eye contact – before looking away again.

"Can you stop that? _Please_," he added, trying to be polite.

Kit gave him a sideways glance. "Oh, you think you're having a rough time. This isn't even my class." He nodded to the board, where the first lines of To Kill a Mockingbird had been written in dry erase markers:

_'__When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.'_

"This is AP English?" Kit asked. When Ty nodded, he looked frustrated, casting a desperate look at the door. "Shit. I'm meant to be in remedial English."

"That's not here."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Kit hissed. He started to pack his books up and then froze. "I can't leave. How stupid am I going to look? And, by the way, I'm _not_ stupid. I'm in remedial classes because my dad moved me around a lot, so I haven't been in a school for a whole semester in years, okay?"

"I didn't say anything," Ty said quietly. He'd been in remedial classes himself for years, when huge numbers of classmates made him panic. He'd hide under tables, counting lumps of old gum stuck to the underside of the desk until they called Livvy out of whatever class she was in to come and get him.

"What do I do?"

Ty shrugged and Kit rolled his eyes.

"Some help you are." He reluctantly wrote his name in pencil on the inside cover of the book he was handed, lightly enough to erase if he had to.

When Ty started writing, their elbows bumped. Of course Kit was left-handed. Ty wrote his own name in fountain pen. He loved his ink pen. It had taken him years to get used to, years of pressing too hard and ink blots and hands stained in deep blue. But it looked beautiful, and he loved how it felt in his hand, the curved body of the grip against his fingers. Kit glanced across and laughed.

"Oh, that's so good. I should've done that."

"Done what?" Ty asked, glancing across in confusion.

"Written in a fake name. Tiberius Nero Blackthorn, that's good. Help me think of one."

"That's my name," Ty said, dark brows drawn in puzzlement. "Ty. Short for Tiberius."

"Oh God, that's terrible. That's so bad," Kit grinned. "Christ."

Ty could feel his hands starting to shake and held them tightly in his lap, hoping they'd stay still. They didn't. They bounced up and down restlessly while he tried to force his breathing to even out. After a couple of minutes, he heard Kit make a strange noise.

"Dude, are you…?" Kit asked, his eyes trailing down to Ty's lap. Ty blinked in confusion before giving a horrified yelp and placing his hands up on the table-top. He wanted to explain that no, _God no_, he wasn't…but Kit was laughing and leaning back again on his chair. Ty's vision was blurring. He didn't know what was happening, just knew he had to get out of here. And Kit's chair. Squeaking. And squeaking. And _squeaking_.

"Stop it!" Ty said sharply, putting his head down on his desk, hands over his ears. The movement of the desk as he put his head down meant Kit's chair jolted sharply back and he grabbed the wall to try and break his fall. It worked, just about. He ended up falling with a bang but looked uninjured. The whole class turned, including Kit from where he looked up from the ground. Ty couldn't read his face. He could, however, feel his own face flaming, horrified. He hadn't meant to say that out loud, move so quickly, do any of that. But his head felt like it was being crushed in a vice, his chest was tightening, and the edges of his vision felt blurry. He pressed his forehead into the table and tried to ground himself. He was here, in AP English, room 203. He could feel the table beneath him and the cuffs of his sweater between his fingers. He could smell the metallic tang of panic and furniture polish. He could hear…something. Some_one_.

"Mr Blackthorn, I've asked you to go and stand in the hallway and take Mr Rook with you."

Glad for an excuse to go, he grabbed his bag, swept the things on his desk into it, and stumbled from the room, weaving in and out of desks like it was a slalom. Kit slouched out after him and lounged with one leg up against the wall while Ty sat on the hallway floor, breathing into his hands and wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"You good?"

Ty propped his chin on his drawn-up knees and glared. "I have never been sent out of class. Ever. In my life."

"How do you like the criminal life, James Dean?"

Ty rolled his eyes and Kit cracked a sideways smile that made him angry to look at. Instead, he decided to pick at the peeling edge of the linoleum flooring.

"Maybe you should consider changing your name to that. James Dean is way better than whatever you said your real name was."

"Tiberius."

"Oh right, yeah. Tiberius Nero freaking Blackthorn. Do your parents hate you?"

"They're dead," Ty spat back, expecting Kit to flinch. Instead, he cocked his head to the side in challenge.

"Same here."

"One of my sisters is dead."

"At least you have sisters."

"She was my twin."

"Shit," Kit said, crossing the narrow hallway to get to him. He sank down by Ty. "You win." He rifled in the breast pocket of his jean jacket and pulled out a stick of gum. "Want some? Promise I won't tell." When Ty hesitated, Kit elbowed him gently in the side. "C'mon, James Dean. It'll work with your new bad boy image. Plus, I've heard it helps anxiety to chew gum, and you look seriously wired."

Ty took the aluminium wrapper gratefully and folded the piece of gum in his mouth, nodding a thank you.

"Just so you know, your name sucks too. K. Rook? You literally got named Crook, okay? So back off my name."

Kit punched him amiably in the shoulder. "There you go! There's the fire we want!"

Ty shook his head but couldn't help smiling. Maybe this Kit wasn't as bad as he seemed.

When Ty walked into the counsellor's office the next day for his morning meeting, he froze when he heard the voice of a second person. He was always the only person with an appointment before school, at eight in the morning. But he could see the silhouette of a person on the couch he usually sat on through the frosted glass. He turned to go, keeping away from the glass so as not to be spotted himself, only for the creak of a chair to stop him in his tracks.

"Ty?"

He turned at the counsellor's voice as she poked her head out of the office door.

"Remember how we spoke about group therapy?"

"You didn't warn me," Ty said, backing up, feeling betrayed.

"Well, I've found someone I think you'll find productive for your own healing," she continued, as if Ty hadn't said anything. "Come in," she said, her voice gentler now, like she'd finally sensed his anxiety. "We'll take things slow, and you can work things through at your own pace. No one is asking you to bear your soul, Ty."

Ty nodded reluctantly and followed her into the room, where a boy sat on the sofa.

"You," Ty said, the word spilling over his lips like a cliff-jumper over a precipice.

Kit nearly dropped his phone when he looked up. "H-hey. I…" he blinked a couple of times. "Hi."

"Have you met?" the counsellor asked, looking between them.

"Kinda," Kit said non-committally, sounding a little uncertain.

"Ty, do you want to sit down?" she asked, and Ty did so, as far away from Kit as he could, pressed against the sofa arm. He jumped when a ringing wrought the air and the counsellor pulled out her phone, glancing at her screen. "I'm so sorry, it's my daughter. I'll be back soon. Try to talk, open up a conversation."

The door shut and the two boys sat in uncomfortable silence that seemed to stretch forever. Ty could hear Kit tapping his foot impatiently, the ticking of the clock on the wall seeming to highlight the awkwardness of each passing second. Eventually, Kit made a noise of frustration and stood up.

"Is that clock pissing you off too?"

"Yeah, kind of," Ty admitted, and watched in horror as Kit hopped up on a desk and reached the clock down off the wall. "What are you doing?" he hissed, scandalised, glancing furtively at the door, hoping to God that – against all odds – this phone called lasted just a little longer.

"Taking this goddamn clock down before I punch a hole right through it," Kit said. He paused to unscrew the back panel deftly with a pin from his jacket, tipping the batteries out into his hand. "Catch," he said, tossing them to Ty. He didn't catch. He dropped and pretended not to be embarrassed as he reached under the sofa to retrieve them. By the time he stood up, Kit was securing the clock back onto the wall. He jumped off the desk and bowed. "Hear that?" he asked, holding a finger up.

He could hear many things, like the air con starting up and the hum of the lights, but he knew Kit wouldn't hear those things. "No," Ty answered instead.

"Exactly," Kit grinned, throwing himself back down on the sofa. "You're welcome."

"So, let's get started. Go on, Blackthorn. Bear all."

"What?" Ty said, sounding startled. He pulled his sweater closer and Kit laughed. He did, however, have the decency to blush, Ty noted.

"I meant your story, not…" Kit broke off with a sheepish laugh. "We're meant to be 'opening up a conversation', right?" Kit pointed out, his fingers shaping air quotes. He seemed way too cool and put together for this. His legs were crossed casually, and he had one hand behind his head; he seemed completely at ease. Ty felt like he was practically vibrating with anxiety every time he left the house recently. "So, spill. Why are you in this fun little clubhouse for sad people?"

"My twin," Ty muttered.

"Livvy, right?"

"I didn't tell you that," Ty said suspiciously. When he glanced at Kit, his cheeks were beet red.

"I might have asked around a little."

"About Livvy?"

"About you."

Now it was Ty's turn to redden. He busied himself stashing the batteries he clutched by shoving them in the pocket of his backpack.

"So, um, who are you living with?" Ty asked eventually, his words slicing through the tension like an ice-pick, jagged and not wholly successful. The dense air chipped but didn't quite shatter.

"Foster parents. They're called Jem and Tessa. They've just had a baby. They're pretty cool, but they're British."

Ty couldn't help laughing, and the tension didn't just shatter – it melted. "You say that like it's a drawback."

"I have to constantly fight my patriotic duty to frisbee their tea bags into the koi pond," Kit joked. "How about you? You're a fellow orphan, right?"

"My sister and her wife look after us all," Ty said, bracing for a dig at his sister and Aline. None came.

"That's cool," Kit nodded. "So, no British invasion at the Blackthorn household then?"

"Technically, you're the invader," Ty teased. "But no. My brother Mark went on this nature retreat a while ago and he came back sounding really fancy and archaic though."

"I hope you don't mind me asking…" Kit began. Ty cut him off, though he knew it was rude.

"Just ask. If I don't want to answer it, I won't. Preambles don't make the question less awkward; it just gives me longer to worry what you're going to say."

"Okay," Kit nodded. "What happened yesterday? In English class?"

Ty sighed. People didn't always understand. But when Kit was asking, in that gentle voice free from any of the sharp humour that normally tinged his words as a defence mechanism, Ty wanted to explain.

"I have autism," Ty told him and glanced across briefly to gauge Kit's reaction. When Kit gave him a prompting nod, Ty continued. "I…I was just anxious and overwhelmed. I don't know how to explain it," Ty lied. He knew perfectly well how to explain it. But it sounded stupid.

"Will you try?" Kit asked quietly. "I want to try and understand. I think I made things worse yesterday."

"You did," Ty agreed bluntly, then hurried on. "Sorry. That came out wrong. I mean that it wasn't your fault. My triggers are my thing. It's my responsibility to cope with them, not everyone else's to change what they're doing so that my brain doesn't feel like it's full of static."

"I don't know. It's a whole lot easier for me not to tap my foot than it is for you to rewire your whole brain," Kit pointed out. "Was it the noise?"

"The noise alone would've been okay, but…" he sighed and willed his voice not to crack. "It's the first time I've walked in on the first day of the semester without Livvy." It was on her name that his voice broke a little and he paused to make it behave before he continued. "And it felt like I could feel everyone's disappointment."

"Disappointed she wasn't back?"

"Kind of…like they were disappointed I was. Like if they had to lose one of us, they'd have preferred it to be me."

The words had stumbled clumsily from Ty's mouth before he could hold them in with tight-shut lips. His eyes were burning, and he looked down at his hands where they shook in his lap. A change of pressure beneath him made Ty glance across as Kit came and sat closer to him. He didn't say anything, just sat there with his arm barely brushing Ty's.

"She was stabbed," Ty said quietly.

"Jesus," Kit breathed, horrified. He put a hand on Ty's knee. He didn't say anything else, but it was like the physical contact created a channel of communication between them because Ty felt as though he could hear all Kit's unspoken words: _that's terrible, I'm sorry, I understand. And - _the one that filled Ty's head_ – I don't wish it was you. No one does. They wish it hadn't happened at all._ "I was in the basement when my dad was killed. He was upstairs in the lounge. It was just a home invasion gone wrong, a chance thing. Worst moment of my life." He sighed and squeezed Ty's knee. "But you know what? We've hit rock bottom. We've hit our lowest low and now it's all uphill from here. The worst thing that could've happened has happened. Life's gonna be better from here on out."

Ty had long since gotten tired of hearing that it would all be okay, that he'd heal with time, that things would all work out. But that wasn't what Kit was saying. He knew how Ty felt in a way no one else did. He knew his family missed Livvy so much it felt like their life had frozen, but losing a twin was so different from losing a sister. He couldn't explain the blinding, visceral pain of it, like he'd had half his body ripped away in an instant, like there was a hole in his heart that would never be filled. Kit had a hole in his heart too. He knew it wasn't about patching up that cavity, but learning to live with it, to feel the memories rush through like air and heal the raw edges rather than tear it open wider.

"Hey, um, do you have to drop AP English?" Ty asked. "If you want, I could tutor you? I…" he trailed off shyly but forced himself to go on. "I'd like it if you stayed in class with me. If you want."

Kit nodded, retracted his hand from Ty's knee. "I'd like that. Thank you."

"But we have to switch seats. Your elbow bumps me when I'm writing."

"Lefty problems," Kit smiled. "Okay. Sounds good."

Ty's chest felt a hundred times less tight. Talking to someone felt like taking off his armour and laying down his weapons. It was facing someone with no defences and just hoping they didn't attack. And Kit hadn't.

"We should probably head to homeroom," Kit said, a tinge of reluctance in his voice. "I still don't know my way around. Can you show me where I'm going?"

"Which room are you in? I'll walk you," Ty said, picking up his backpack. On the way out, Ty peered into the office next door to see the counsellor choosing a cookie from a tin, a mug of coffee beside her. So much for a phone call.

When they reached Kit's homeroom, Ty lingered, not sure what to do. Kit saved him any further awkwardness with a smile.

"Thanks. I'll see you in English." He turned, but paused and spun back, calling Ty before he'd gone too far. "Um, hey, what do you do at lunch?"

'Eating in the counsellor's office' didn't seem like a particularly great answer, so he shrugged. "Not much really."

"The cafeteria's pretty loud," Kit observed. He seemed to be hinting at something, but Ty couldn't figure out what it was.

"Yeah, I bring my own lunch to avoid it."

"Same here. Do you maybe wanna go eat lunch on the bleachers or something?"

Ty beamed, feeling momentarily lost for words, all comprehensible or intelligible speech gone from his mind. "Uh, yeah. Cool," he eventually managed.

"Awesome. I'll meet you by the football pitch then. Later, Ty."

By the time Ty got to homeroom, his heart had slowed to something like normal. He put a hand into his backpack to find a pen and his fingers brushed the smooth cylinders of the batteries. When someone sat next to him, looking frantically for their pen, Ty slid a biro across with a shy smile. Maybe he could still see rock bottom, could still jump down to it easily, but the top of the canyon didn't feel quite so far away anymore.


End file.
